Diadem wrote:Quite apart from costing games, this also just isn't very fun.

They call it "tilt". Your performance will be worse due to frustration at the game.

It's not my performance. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I mean, well, I'm not a pro, I no doubt make plenty of mistakes. But I'm consistently getting good k/d ratios (even taking into account I'm mostly playing offensive heroes and should thus be at > 1).

The problem is the game itself. The matchmaking is just horrible. And there's a few serious problems with the game mechanics themselves as well. Just played three more games, each against teams that were slightly favored (1-2 points above us in score). First game we won easily, I got about 1/10th of a level. Second and third game were narrow defeats, and I lost nearly a full level each game.

I'm done with this game. Bad allies is one thing, and something that can eventually be fixed by joining a clan, but losing 6-8 times as much as you win against an enemy that is higher ranked is just fucking ridiculous.

K/D is not a good indicator of performance, especially in a game which counts assists as kills. My most-played character is Mercy (mostly just because I have the devil skin), and I still have a positive K/D.

I'm not playing the competitive mode. I gave it a try, but the first 5 attempts, someone left within 30 seconds, which cancelled the game. First completed game, I was on the losing team, we got stomped fair and square. Game after that, we did so well that 5 of the enemy team left midgame. It was just one dude left trying to fight off the six of us. That was not a good victory.

I just got the "Huge Success" achievement as Symmetra for teleporting 20 team mates in a single match, and now have Symmetra's "cute" spray. Yay, those cute sprays are the best, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone else with this one. I mean, we lost the match (narrowly), but the important thing is I earned a difficult-to-acquire thing!

Also, something I'd really like to see is better categorization of heroes. So, things like dps, specialist, healing, builder, defense, tank, sniper, useless hanzo, etc... That way people stop thinking that Tracer and Gengi are going to cut it for dps, because they're far more situational specialist characters. And they're more likely to balance the team.

SlyReaper wrote:Everyone seems to love playing Hanzo, and I get a sinking feeling every time a team mate locks him in. Effective Hanzos are extremely rare, and always on the enemy team.

This is my life now.

2 Hanzo, a Genji, a Widow, and a Mei.

On attack.

All my wuts.

Don't get me wrong, a good Hanzo can be really scary, but like you said they're fairly uncommon. I can kind of play him on a map like Anubis, where there's a hard choke point right at the start, but a lot of maps I'm completely wasted when I try to play him so I mostly just try to rack up as many kills as I can get, then switch off to someone else the first time I die.

Jahoclave wrote:Also, something I'd really like to see is better categorization of heroes. So, things like dps, specialist, healing, builder, defense, tank, sniper, useless hanzo, etc... That way people stop thinking that Tracer and Gengi are going to cut it for dps, because they're far more situational specialist characters. And they're more likely to balance the team.

The only problem is that there are strong cases for multiple heroes to be in multiple categories. Someone like Pharah can take some hits and dish out some serious damage, but she's also extremely mobile and able to sidestep most front lines without being seen and harass from the back. I can see why Blizzard has it as simplified as they do, but it does tend to give people the wrong idea about the best places to use certain heroes (see above about Hanzo).

The story so far:In the beginning the Universe was created.This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

If I'm on attack at Temple of Anubis (and hardly ever anywhere else), I'll pick Genji. There's a really nice flanking route that you can use if your character can climb walls. I can get up behind where the enemy widowmaker usually stands, and get a cheap kill in if there is indeed one there. If not, I can quite effecively harrass whatever they do have on their back line. This hopefully eases the pressure on the choke point and gives my team an opportunity to push.

The flanking route is sometimes full of symmetra turrets, so it's not fool proof. Sometimes have to go monkey just to clear those out.

So yeah, Genji, very very situational. Hanzo, I'm not sure I've ever found a good reason to play him. I think people just like playing as him because they think he's cool. Widowmaker, she actually has a use. She's probably the best Bastion / Torbjorn counter in the game.

And Mei is awesome. That ice wall means you team can advance past a bastion, or cut off enemies from their team mates. And that freeze ray thing she has is extremely fun to use, and extremely frustrating to be on the wrong end of. That moment when you've been frozen by Mei... you're completely powerless. The last thing you see before you die is a cheerful looking Chinese girl take careful aim between your eyes. Mei is deeply horrifying. Also, bae.

Jahoclave wrote:Also, something I'd really like to see is better categorization of heroes. So, things like dps, specialist, healing, builder, defense, tank, sniper, useless hanzo, etc... That way people stop thinking that Tracer and Gengi are going to cut it for dps, because they're far more situational specialist characters. And they're more likely to balance the team.

The only problem is that there are strong cases for multiple heroes to be in multiple categories. Someone like Pharah can take some hits and dish out some serious damage, but she's also extremely mobile and able to sidestep most front lines without being seen and harass from the back. I can see why Blizzard has it as simplified as they do, but it does tend to give people the wrong idea about the best places to use certain heroes (see above about Hanzo).

A good solution would be to give the characters scores from 1 to 5 in *all* categories, and then display the total sum of the team's scores to reflect the balance of the team. Most characters are hybrids in some way. That way you can reflect things like that how Soldier and Zenyatta offer some healing, they aren't strictly speaking healers.

SlyReaper wrote:If I'm on attack at Temple of Anubis (and hardly ever anywhere else), I'll pick Genji. There's a really nice flanking route that you can use if your character can climb walls. I can get up behind where the enemy widowmaker usually stands, and get a cheap kill in if there is indeed one there. If not, I can quite effecively harrass whatever they do have on their back line. This hopefully eases the pressure on the choke point and gives my team an opportunity to push.

I use that that route a lot, ... as Zarya. Symmetra turrets are just a bonus. Free charge! Then the enemy team has a hell of a bad day when an almost fully charged Zarya busts through their flank

You can actually do this on a lot of maps. Volskaya has a route to the left where you can dash to the first point without ever entering through the main gate. Works with tracer as well, and I think Lucio might be able to wall skate it. Usually this causes the (all too far forward) defenses to fall apart and allows the rest of the team to bust the main gate.

I think that's overall the way to think of these alternate routes. Not necessarily to take the point, but to force the defenses out of position so that your team can advance up the main route.

SlyReaper wrote:And Mei is awesome. That ice wall means you team can advance past a bastion, or cut off enemies from their team mates. And that freeze ray thing she has is extremely fun to use, and extremely frustrating to be on the wrong end of. That moment when you've been frozen by Mei... you're completely powerless. The last thing you see before you die is a cheerful looking Chinese girl take careful aim between your eyes. Mei is deeply horrifying. Also, bae.

A good Mei is terrifying to have on the enemy team. A bad Mei is terrifying to have on your own team.

I edit my posts a lot and sometimes the words wrong order words appear in sentences get messed up.

SlyReaper wrote:If I'm on attack at Temple of Anubis (and hardly ever anywhere else), I'll pick Genji. There's a really nice flanking route that you can use if your character can climb walls. I can get up behind where the enemy widowmaker usually stands, and get a cheap kill in if there is indeed one there. If not, I can quite effecively harrass whatever they do have on their back line. This hopefully eases the pressure on the choke point and gives my team an opportunity to push.

I use that that route a lot, ... as Zarya. Symmetra turrets are just a bonus. Free charge! Then the enemy team has a hell of a bad day when an almost fully charged Zarya busts through their flank

You can actually do this on a lot of maps. Volskaya has a route to the left where you can dash to the first point without ever entering through the main gate. Works with tracer as well, and I think Lucio might be able to wall skate it. Usually this causes the (all too far forward) defenses to fall apart and allows the rest of the team to bust the main gate.

I think that's overall the way to think of these alternate routes. Not necessarily to take the point, but to force the defenses out of position so that your team can advance up the main route.

That's almost the route, but Zarya can't climb the wall. When you're in the tall building, Genji climbs the wall and comes out of a window at the top. Then he has a clear path right to the enemy's back line at Point A, including platforms that overlook it. There's often a Widowmaker up there, who won't see you coming (because ideally you're doing this long before she has a chance to build up ult charge).

SlyReaper wrote:And Mei is awesome. That ice wall means you team can advance past a bastion, or cut off enemies from their team mates. And that freeze ray thing she has is extremely fun to use, and extremely frustrating to be on the wrong end of. That moment when you've been frozen by Mei... you're completely powerless. The last thing you see before you die is a cheerful looking Chinese girl take careful aim between your eyes. Mei is deeply horrifying. Also, bae.

A good Mei is terrifying to have on the enemy team. A bad Mei is terrifying to have on your own team.

I know, right? I've died many times because I crept forward a bit to fire off a quick cheeky shot round the corner, then found a Mei wall stopping me from ducking back in. I like to think when I play Mei, my wall placements are actually advantageous to my own team.

Have you ever done the tactic of putting a Bastion next to a wall, then using a Mei wall to boost him up to look over it? It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever tried, and it actually works quite well.

SlyReaper wrote:If I'm on attack at Temple of Anubis (and hardly ever anywhere else), I'll pick Genji. There's a really nice flanking route that you can use if your character can climb walls. I can get up behind where the enemy widowmaker usually stands, and get a cheap kill in if there is indeed one there. If not, I can quite effecively harrass whatever they do have on their back line. This hopefully eases the pressure on the choke point and gives my team an opportunity to push.

I use that that route a lot, ... as Zarya. Symmetra turrets are just a bonus. Free charge! Then the enemy team has a hell of a bad day when an almost fully charged Zarya busts through their flank

You can actually do this on a lot of maps. Volskaya has a route to the left where you can dash to the first point without ever entering through the main gate. Works with tracer as well, and I think Lucio might be able to wall skate it. Usually this causes the (all too far forward) defenses to fall apart and allows the rest of the team to bust the main gate.

I think that's overall the way to think of these alternate routes. Not necessarily to take the point, but to force the defenses out of position so that your team can advance up the main route.

That's almost the route, but Zarya can't climb the wall. When you're in the tall building, Genji climbs the wall and comes out of a window at the top. Then he has a clear path right to the enemy's back line at Point A, including platforms that overlook it. There's often a Widowmaker up there, who won't see you coming (because ideally you're doing this long before she has a chance to build up ult charge).

Yeah, the routes (and goals) are a bit different. With Genji you want to get behind the enemy lines and threaten the point, Zarya wants to flank their defensive line. The end result of breaking their defenses is the same, though. With genji they need to bring people back to secure the point. With Zarya they need to bring people to the left to deal with her flanking. It's a surprisingly well entrenched spot for Zarya to harass the defenses since you have access to a big healing pack.

I know, right? I've died many times because I crept forward a bit to fire off a quick cheeky shot round the corner, then found a Mei wall stopping me from ducking back in. I like to think when I play Mei, my wall placements are actually advantageous to my own team.

At least when I accidentally place a bad wall, I have the courtesy of cancelling it

I edit my posts a lot and sometimes the words wrong order words appear in sentences get messed up.

I don't even think Mei's ice wall can reach that high, honestly. I've only ever seen Widow, Hanzo, Genji, and Pharah up there. Lucio might be able to do it if you're really careful about your wall riding, though I don't know what you really gain by going up there as Lucio anyway.

The story so far:In the beginning the Universe was created.This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

Obby wrote:I don't even think Mei's ice wall can reach that high, honestly. I've only ever seen Widow, Hanzo, Genji, and Pharah up there. Lucio might be able to do it if you're really careful about your wall riding, though I don't know what you really gain by going up there as Lucio anyway.

Maybe better Los heal, but it'd kill your mobility and make you a juicy target. Your healing would be dead the moment you stepped back.

But yeah, I could be good for category scores on heroes as well, just something to indicate that you're not going to get the damage output out of the specialists like you would a pharah or junkrat. Because, when I heal or go tank, the lack of damage can be really noticeable.

Yep, at this point I'm completely okay with them giving large bonus xp for tanks, lucio, mercy, and the smattering of consistent damage dealers just so people will stop picking high-skill cap specialists. So many games just turn into stomps because too many people want to play the showboats that they're not good enough at and the team only really needs one of. And I don't think the maps are that great for a lot of the characters anyways since, even with the flank routes, they tend to be really narrow and funnel.

So they announced a new hero, Ana. She's a sniper healer. Her main attack is actually a DoT attack, but it runs its course in under a second so it doesn't really feel that way. The attack either will heal an ally, or damage an enemy, depending on who it hits. She also has a sleep dart as a secondary attack, which puts an enemy to sleep for 5 (maybe 6?) seconds unless they take damage. It seems its intended primarily as her escape ability, in case she gets ambushed. She can also throw a biotic grenade that will heal allies and damage enemies in a small radius.

But her ultimate ability is insane. She targets an ally and gives them increased speed, increased damage, and increased damage reduction. There are videos of people on the PTR just shredding through enemies with just normal attacks after they get boosted with Ana's ult. I'm curious what this will do to the balancing of the other heroes.

In other news, I seem to be getting back to my old skill levels from a few years ago from when I used to play FPS games more frequently. I can now consistently win 1v1 fights with most heroes, which is fun. Though I do seem to have a tendency of performing worse the longer I play, which is also how it was when I used to play CoD2 competitively. After 2 or 3 hours my aim starts to get worse and I seem to lose a lot of effectiveness. I'm not sure how to rectify that other than to stop playing, which I'm OK with for the most part since I usually don't have the opportunity to play for longer than that anyway, but it would be nice to be able to "power through" or something if I ever do get the time to play for longer...

The story so far:In the beginning the Universe was created.This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

Obby wrote:But her ultimate ability is insane. She targets an ally and gives them increased speed, increased damage, and increased damage reduction. There are videos of people on the PTR just shredding through enemies with just normal attacks after they get boosted with Ana's ult. I'm curious what this will do to the balancing of the other heroes.

I don't even want to think about what this ability does to D.VA...

Obby wrote:In other news, I seem to be getting back to my old skill levels from a few years ago from when I used to play FPS games more frequently. I can now consistently win 1v1 fights with most heroes, which is fun. Though I do seem to have a tendency of performing worse the longer I play, which is also how it was when I used to play CoD2 competitively. After 2 or 3 hours my aim starts to get worse and I seem to lose a lot of effectiveness. I'm not sure how to rectify that other than to stop playing, which I'm OK with for the most part since I usually don't have the opportunity to play for longer than that anyway, but it would be nice to be able to "power through" or something if I ever do get the time to play for longer...

Maybe you're just tired? I got the same thing when I played Starcraft 2. You can alleviate it by taking a few breaks now and then. The brain isn't built for focusing hours on end.

I'm still quite far off my aim compared to when I was younger. It's improved since I've played overwatch, but I still can't hit the broad side of a barn with heroes that require decent aim.

I edit my posts a lot and sometimes the words wrong order words appear in sentences get messed up.

Though, played a game against two widows today where I had to hook the enemy team out of their base so we could kill them. They were that bad. Just, how you stay double widow when you're getting wrecked, I don't know.

I pretty much only play Quick Play anymore because of that. I didn't even finish the qualifiers for Competitive. I can count on one hand the number of times that someone has been receptive to changing heroes, regardless of how diplomatic I try to be when requesting someone to change to something more beneficial to the map or team comp.

Obby wrote:I pretty much only play Quick Play anymore because of that. I didn't even finish the qualifiers for Competitive. I can count on one hand the number of times that someone has been receptive to changing heroes, regardless of how diplomatic I try to be when requesting someone to change to something more beneficial to the map or team comp.

Yeah, it'd be nice if bliz would highlight the rock paper scissors nature of heroes. You actually see people picking reaper with a purpose these days to deal with the tanks. Though, I have been having a lot of success as roadhog recently. As long as you have competent enough teammates to aim and shoot at the guy you just hooked out of position and blasted in the face, it usually makes up for their otherwise overall incompetence. That, and for some reason, people just let you use roadhog as a flanker. Like they're blind to the big giant character stage left.

So I've finally tried the competitive mode and gone through the 10 placement matches.The tie-break mechanism is terrible. It wouldn't matter so much, except it's really common for both teams to successfully complete all the objectives (unless one team is much stronger). The attacking team in sudden death has quite the disadvantage - it's not mattered which team performed better, the defender's won every time.Not had the problem of really bad team picks so far - there's a high pick-rate for Bastion and Torbjon on defense though (placed at 50 for what it's worth).

I swear the BM is getting worse. Someone wins a game, they gloat about how "ez" it was in chat. Someone loses a game, they blame their team, or hurl insults at the winners for using a particular tactic. It's almost every game now.

To be fair, the matchmaking just seems to be getting wonkier. It feels very rare to get an even match. Played maybe 10 games today, and 8 of them were a complete roflstomp one way or the other. Very frustrating to play when your team has two Lucios and an AFK Soldier :-/

I edit my posts a lot and sometimes the words wrong order words appear in sentences get messed up.

SlyReaper wrote:I swear the BM is getting worse. Someone wins a game, they gloat about how "ez" it was in chat. Someone loses a game, they blame their team, or hurl insults at the winners for using a particular tactic. It's almost every game now.

Just ignore chat. Can you mute players?

TaintedDeity wrote:Tainted Deity

suffer-cait wrote:One day I'm gun a go visit weeks and discover they're just a computer in a trashcan at an ice cream shop.

SlyReaper wrote:I swear the BM is getting worse. Someone wins a game, they gloat about how "ez" it was in chat. Someone loses a game, they blame their team, or hurl insults at the winners for using a particular tactic. It's almost every game now.

I usually block and squelch these people as soon as something like that is said. I also used to avoid them, but they removed that option.

I have very little tolerance for the negativity about losing. Yeah, we get it, we lost. But I'm sitting here with 4 golds as Lucio, so you really shouldn't be complaining about how much the team sucks compared to your awesome abilities as Hanzo on attack.

And then, of course, you check their career profile and you see 10+ hours on Hanzo and Widow, with less than an hour on anything else, and zero time on any support character.

The story so far:In the beginning the Universe was created.This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

SlyReaper wrote:I swear the BM is getting worse. Someone wins a game, they gloat about how "ez" it was in chat. Someone loses a game, they blame their team, or hurl insults at the winners for using a particular tactic. It's almost every game now.

I usually block and squelch these people as soon as something like that is said. I also used to avoid them, but they removed that option.

I have very little tolerance for the negativity about losing. Yeah, we get it, we lost. But I'm sitting here with 4 golds as Lucio, so you really shouldn't be complaining about how much the team sucks compared to your awesome abilities as Hanzo on attack.

And then, of course, you check their career profile and you see 10+ hours on Hanzo and Widow, with less than an hour on anything else, and zero time on any support character.

Yeah, I think lucio is ending up around my top four played just because I have to play him so much. And, except for the time all but two of my team left, I've never even played hanzo in quick or competitive.

My three most played heroes are, in order, Mercy, Lucio, and Symmetra. Yeah, I'm the helpful one. Only played Hanzo once, and that was because of a weekly play-list where your hero was randomly selected.

I have a fair amount of time on Reaper, Soldier and Pharah. Not that long on Mercy and very little on Lucio (< 1 hour).I don't really like playing support, especially in Quick Match. You're a facilitator - you help others do their job, but if nobody is being particularly proactive you're not that useful. And Mercy's ult is much weaker in QM.

Top three heroes in competitive are (in order) Pharah, Soldier, and Mercy.

I played a round of the brawl last night before I went to bed, just to try Ana out, and it's definitely a tough position. You're a sniper, so you want to be farther away to keep out of direct conflict, but you have no way to reach the higher perches like Hanzo and Widow. You also have close-range abilities which, in order to make the most of them, require you to be a bit closer to the action. You are constantly needing to re-position yourself in order to keep line-of-sight with the battles as they happen across the entire range of play, but can't do it very quickly so playing her effectively really requires a good awareness of the entire battlefield. Fortunately we were playing on Anubis so it wasn't too bad to sit around point B and shoot down the long central ally, but on a lot of other maps that's just not really possible. She will certainly be interesting.

The story so far:In the beginning the Universe was created.This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

SlyReaper wrote:I've played a few games with Ana now, I think it'll take a while to master the character. Trying to snipe one's own team mates, not as easy as you'd think.

Yeah, I was trying her in ai just to see what she does. But, because it was ai I never got a good read on whether her healing was really powerful enough. She might be a good off-healer like zen, especially combo with the ult and the anti-heal. But yeah, the fact that she's a sniper pretty much makes me think she's not going to be good positionally. She might be great in the right hands, but those'll be few and far between. I mean, I just wrecked the other anas in the brawl because I could just walk up to them with d.va and lay waste.

Also, I've come to the conclusion that I'd like the comp rank to be four digits. Just make it out of 9k and tack the percentage on the end as the last two digits. You're already tracking that variable anyways with that slider.

Her dart's 80 damage or 80 healing, and feels like it fires about once a second; that makes her single-target healing 60% stronger than Mercy's.

If she can land all her shots, and neglecting reload time. So, in practice, substantially less. Her "duel" combo (dart -> sleep -> dart + nade) does 265 damage, though, so she's got that going for her, which is nice. (Or sleep -> dart + nade + melee for 200-healthers.)

existential_elevator wrote:It's like a jigsaw puzzle of Hitler pissing on Mother Theresa. No individual piece is offensive, but together...

If you think hot women have it easy because everyone wants to have sex at them, you're both wrong and also the reason you're wrong.

I've managed to play one quick match game with Ana (no way am I playing her when we have two on our team already).The ultimate is strong. The abilities seem decent too (although the sleep dart is hard to use in quick match - team mates wake enemies up too early).Her shots seem to be projectiles - there's travel time, but I believe hitboxes for targets are much larger when using projectile weapons than hitscan weapons. I'm guessing it changes to histscan when scoped (or at least, the projectile speed is increased substantially).

She's definitely not a "hang back" hero - you want to be using that grenade. I think treating her as a sniper is misplaying her.She suffers from the same mobility problems Zenyatta has - neither can really reach friendlies in odd positions to heal them. Mercy has her shift to move around quickly, and Lucio is generally quite mobile.

I was definitely playing her much more as a healer than a sniper though. She's quite good at that. The hitbox when shooting at teammates is ridiculously large, so it's very easy to line up shots. And the range is an advantage. With mercy you have to be right on top of your team, meaning you'll be in the line of fire. With Ana you can hang back a bit, so you take much less fire yourself. And if you do encounter enemies, you have quite a bit of bite to defend yourself.

DaBigCheez wrote:Her dart's 80 damage or 80 healing, and feels like it fires about once a second; that makes her single-target healing 60% stronger than Mercy's.

If she can land all her shots, and neglecting reload time. So, in practice, substantially less. Her "duel" combo (dart -> sleep -> dart + nade) does 265 damage, though, so she's got that going for her, which is nice. (Or sleep -> dart + nade + melee for 200-healthers.)

According to this, her rifle heals 75 per shot. Doing the maths, and taking reload time into account, her healing capability is about 37% more than Mercy. As you say, that relies on landing every shot.